1. Wanda Gosciminska – A Textile Worker (Wanda Gosciminska - wlókniarka)
The life of a female weaver is thrown onto the socio-political canvas of pre-war and post-war communist Poland through the use of expressive allegorical and symbolic imagery in this imaginative take on the documentary form.
It has an average vote of 8 on TMDB.
2. The Road Taken
This 1996 documentary takes a nostalgic ride through history to present the experiences of Black sleeping-car porters who worked on Canada's railways from the early 1900s through the 1960s. There was a strong sense of pride among these men and they were well-respected by their community. Yet, harsh working conditions prevented them from being promoted to other railway jobs until finally, in 1955, porter Lee Williams took his fight to the union.
3. Fish or Cut Bait
In the 1970's, filmmakers Tom Burger, Bill McKiggan and Chuck Lapp began documenting the history and current struggles of inshore fishermen in Atlantic Canada to form a union. Until 1979 it was illegal for fishermen to form a union in Nova Scotia. The committed funding from the National Film Board was withdrawn for this film, however the filmmakers continued to edit the film by entering the NFB at night. The CBC refused to broadcast the film, but it was finally released in 1990 and broadcast nationally that year on Vision TV.
4. Jobs for All! (Arbete åt alla!)
A highly choreographed review of the Industrial Age as we know it today – an intense and playful roller coaster ride that demands the viewer confronts how “work works.” Culled entirely from archival footage, the film unfolds in the filmmakers’ trademark, and humorously critical, cinematic voices.
5. Let's Rise Up (Insorgiamo)
On 9 July 2021, the 422 workers at the GKN factory in Campi Bisenzio near Florence received their dismissal, by email. They immediately met in front of the factory, scared away the management's bodyguards and have been holding an open-ended meeting at the factory ever since. In June of 2022, they talk about how they are rooted in the territory, why 30,000 people demonstrated with them. They explain why they put their struggle under the slogan "Insorgiamo!" , the slogan of the italian partisans who liberated Florence in 1944. But they also talk about their collaboration with climate activists and what they would like to produce. But as things stand today, it is not the workers who are responsible for the ecological damage caused by production: "Nobody asked me what I would like to produce when they hired me. They hired me and that was it."
6. Wildcat: The Struggle for Democracy in the New Zealand Timberworkers' Union
Delegates and workers discuss the issues that effect the Timberworkers’ Union, the reasons for the formation of the Combined Council of Timber Workers Delegates and their industrial action.
7. The Flickering Flame
Documentary following dockers of Liverpool sacked in a labour dispute and their supporters’ group, Women of the Waterfront, as they receive support from around the world and seek solidarity at the TUC conference.
It has an average vote of 5.7 on TMDB.
8. Taylor Chain I: A Story in a Union Local
Taylor Chain I tells the gritty realities of a seven-week strike at a small Indiana chain factory during 1973-74. Volatile union meetings and tension-filled interactions on the picket line provide an inside view of the tensions and conflicts inherent to labor negotiations. Due to a lack of funds and a fire at Kartemquin which necessitated a re-edit of the film, the film was not released until 1980. Filming then began a year later on Taylor Chain II: A Story of Collective Bargaining.
9. Homebound (Homebound)
Through first person narration, Tari reveals personal stories related to her decision to work in Taiwan, her strained family relationships, the risks involved in working abroad and the traps she has fallen into.
10. Taylor Chain II: A Story of Collective Bargaining
In 1981-2, the Kartemquin filmmakers returned to the Taylor Chain plant to show labor and management working together against the odds, trying to save the plant from becoming the latest victim of anti-union legislation and the globalization of cheap, exploitable labor. A sequel to Taylor Chain I: A Story in a Union Local.
11. Feedback (Endurgjöf)
A documentary about teachers' strikes in Iceland in the latter half of the 20th century with a special focus on 1995.
12. For Twenty Cents A Day
A film documenting work shortages during the Depression of the 1930s and the attempts to deal with the unemployed, in particular young men. The film discusses the establishment of relief camps and projects, where men were paid twenty cents per day; the founding of organizations such as the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation , Workers' Unity League, and Relief Camp Workers' Union; general unionization and protest of the unemployed, including the On To Ottawa Trek, Regina Riot, sit-in strike from May to June 1938 at the Vancouver Main Post Office, Vancouver Art Gallery and Hotel Georgia, and the resulting Bloody Sunday of June 19.
13. Harlan County U.S.A.
This film documents the coal miners' strike against the Brookside Mine of the Eastover Mining Company in Harlan County, Kentucky in June, 1973. Eastovers refusal to sign a contract led to the strike, which lasted more than a year and included violent battles between gun-toting company thugs/scabs and the picketing miners and their supportive women-folk. Director Barbara Kopple puts the strike into perspective by giving us some background on the historical plight of the miners and some history of the UMWA. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with New York Women in Film & Television in 2004.
It has an average vote of 7.5 on TMDB.
14. Union
The Amazon Labor Union — a group of current and former Amazon workers in New York City’s Staten Island — takes on one of the world’s largest and most powerful companies in the fight to unionize.
15. Cocalero (Cocalero)
A documentary centered on the union formed by Bolivian farmers in response to their government's effort eradicate coca crops, and the man who would come to represent them, Evo Morales.
It has an average vote of 5 on TMDB.
16. Welu De Fasli (Welu De Fasli)
Fasli is a child born and raised in Kampung Kalo, Lengko Ajang, Manggarai Timur, East Nusa Tenggara. This film is about Fasli and his family; a conversation among the sounds of candlenuts.
17. Berlino (Berlino)
What do Italian guest-workers do when they get home, after a hard day's work on one of the many new building sites in Berlin? They talk, get bored, phone home. They try to survive. Berlino is a moving documentary about displacement.
18. Freedom Isn't Free — The Freedom Charter Today
Since its adoption in June 1955 by the Congress movement, the Freedom Charter has been the key political document that acted as a beacon and source of inspiration in the liberation struggle against Apartheid. It was reputedly the main source that informed democratic South Africa’s liberal constitution and a constant reference point for the ruling African National Congress and rival political parties that it spawned since 1994, all claiming the Freedom Charter’s legacy. Freedom Isn’t Free assesses the history and role of the charter, especially in relation to key political and socio-economic aspects of developments in South Africa up to the present period. It includes rare archival footage with interviews of a cross-section of outspoken influential South Africans.
It has an average vote of 8 on TMDB.
19. Crude Oil (原油)
Filmed in the Inner Mongolian portion of the Gobi Desert, this film follows a group of oil field workers as they go about their daily routine.
It has an average vote of 7.2 on TMDB.
20. Island Shunters
Short documentary on the shunters in the Darling Island, Sydney, Australia railyard. Filmed in 1977.